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The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Honest
Motive
Seems
Honesty
Doe
Sake
Character
Mere
Men
Honor
Difference
Duty
Betwixt
Differences
Chiefly

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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
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Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
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A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.
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Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.
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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.
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A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.
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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
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In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.
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Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.
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Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.
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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
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It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
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A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
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Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.
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Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
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The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.
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There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
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What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense.
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The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.
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